Dominican diplomats face tough choice in the U.S

Santo Domingo.- The new Administration headed by Danilo Medina still has to designate more officials including the foreign service, for which the U.S. Embassy on Thursday stressed that "the U.S. government doesn’t accept U.S. citizens or permanent legal residents as diplomatic agents."

The statement comes in the wake of a question posed by newspaper Diario Libre Editor in Chief Adriano Miguel Tejada to that embassy, on whether a legal resident or U.S. citizen can be a diplomat or consular officer in the United States, even if in the latter case they have dual nationality.

"There’s a law that prohibits those who aren’t accredited by the U.S. Government as diplomatic agents to represent themselves as such, in accordance with Section 18 U.S. Code 915 … If an American citizen has another nationality, the conditions are still valid, as if they were a U.S. citizen," said Public Affairs officer Judith Ravin.

Diario Libre adds that the confusion triggered a conflict in the Dominican Consulate in Boston late last year, after allegations that the newly appointed diplomat, Miguel Andujar, refused to renounce his status as a U.S. resident, to be accredited by the State Department as a Dominican official.